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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Brunswick Street Gallery is calling for entries for their 'small works' exhibition. I thought I should give it a go, so I came up with these three pieces. They are pencil drawings on embossed paper. The drawing is done with my left hand, except for the area in the small embossed square, which is done with my right. I personally always prefer my left hand drawings. Nice and lose. I don't really enjoy drawing in too much detail, I prefer to capture the essence of the subject, or maybe I'm just lazy?!

Friday, May 22, 2009

If anyone is in the Boroondara area of Melbourne you may have seen my picture in the Progress Leader newspaper (page three!) In it I'm working away in my studio, tidied up specially for the photograph.

I've been thinking how interesting I find peoples work areas. I love seeing how others work, their inspiration pictures and postcards, works in progress on the walls etc. So I thought I'd show some (bad) photos of my studio. It got a bit messy in just a week after the professional photographer had visited, but bare in mind my studio is also our bedroom, it's a big room.

Studio + bedroom = extra messy!

I was not so sure I wanted our bed in my studio at first, but now I quite like it. I can lie in bed in the mornings looking at my work, seeing what needs to be done. I don't need to feel quite so bad about lie ins anymore, because I am actually working while I'm doing so!

Friday, May 15, 2009

I bought a number of sheets of various shades of red wool felt from FeltCraftStudio on etsy. I was lacking this popular colour in my last batch. So I've been busy making red fantail brooches. I've listed them on my Featherstitch Fantail blog along with a few new necklaces.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I have two new zines for sale on etsy. One is Keys, drawings of keys that I've found in our house. The old car key that you just can't bring yourself to throw out even though the car is long gone, it's all that you have left of the old girl! Pretty old keys that you have no idea what they open, but they look nice so you keep them. The bike lock key on your key chain that you still haven't taken off but the lock broke years ago.

The other book is Australian Magpies. It contains reproductions of pen and ink sketches of the wonderful Australian Magpie! Both books can be bought on etsy here and here, they are also for sale in Sticky Institute in the flinders subway in the city.

Monday, May 11, 2009

I'm having a featherstitch fantail giveaway! Simply go to my featherstitch fantail blog and choose your favourite design, leave a comment on it and I will pull out a winner at the start of June. The winner will win a brooch in similar colours to the design favoured. Remember to leave your email so I can get in contact with you. Good Luck! Here are a few of my most recent designs listed...

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Since discovering that I can buy felt balls and realizing I can get them online from here or here I've been making a number of fantail necklaces. They have been received well at market, especially the red ones! Here are two of my most recent pieces.

Also, today on the way back from pilates class I saw an Eastern Spinebill, I think a male. I just looked him up in the bird book now. He was very handsome with a lovely long curved beak. (The photo is not mine, just an image from the internet)

Monday, May 4, 2009

I owned a cat called Freddy while I was growing up. He was 17 or 18 when he died and I was away at university. I started dreaming about him regularly so i thought maybe I needed to make a book for him, about him, remembering all the good times we'd spent together. So I made my 'Freddy' book. Originally the book was made using digital prints on good paper and hand bound with lovely japanese binding. I finished the edition of 10 in 2004 and sold the books, but I wanted to make a more accessible edition of this book. So recently I decided to remake it as a photocopied zine.

I have these books at market with me and every time someone looks though them I feel happy that Freddy is being remembered! I still dream about him every now and then. Jeremy says he feels he's known this cat all his life too for all the talking of him that I partake in, even though Freddy died in 2000 and I only met Jeremy in 2005. It makes me feel warm and safe when I wake in the morning if I've dreamt of Freddy. He's almost become more than just my old dead cat, he's 'dream cat' and he often talks to me in these dreams in a very comforting way, almost like a parent reassuring a child.

Anyway, I've listed Freddy book on etsy and I'm going to leave some off in Sticky Institute, the zine shop in the Flinders Street subway, sometime this week.

Here is a poem that I fell in love with. It is one of the poems in the Australian poetry book I had the pleasure of illustrating last year. It reminded me of Freddy.